CLEVELAND — Before the start of the NBA Finals, Andre Iguodala was listed at many sports books at 150-to-1 odds of taking home Finals MVP. After starting every game of his career until this year, he didn’t start once this season until Game 4 against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He isn’t the deadly shooter Stephen Curry is, or the dynamic personality of Draymond Green.

But after the Warriors hoisted their first Larry O’Brien Trophy in four decades, he was the obvious choice. Nobody else embodies the ethos of this historic Warriors team quite the way he does.

“I’ve been preparing for this moment for 11 years now,” Iguodala said after the celebration had commenced.

Throughout his career, Iguodala’s role has been the same everywhere he’s gone. He’s the guy that gets stuck on LeBron James. It’s a mostly thankless task — James put up otherworldly numbers even as effectively as Iguodala played him. And he stepped up to take on this daunting task even after being asked to sacrifice the touches and attention he had grown accustomed to during his career. When Steve Kerr inserted Iguodala into the starting lineup in Game 4, it changed the trajectory of the entire series, and Cleveland had no counter. Iguodala’s versatility was the reason why the move worked so well.

“Whether it’s him taking a back seat and letting Harrison start and not mumbling a word about coach’s decision all year, and then coming in — he was great the entire series,” said Green. “Not just when he started starting. He was great the entire series. But he saved this season for us.”

“He stepped up,” said Shaun Livingston, another veteran who saw his role fluctuate over the course of the season but contributed valuable minutes in the Finals. “Obviously his role this series was guarding LeBron and then making shots, making plays for everybody. But to be the sixth man all year, even in the playoffs, and then come and start and turn this thing around for us, I think that defines our team. Everybody being ready. He had the hardest job probably on the floor this series trying to contain LeBron.”

If Iguodala had done nothing on offense in the entire series, he would have been the most important Warriors player simply on the strength of his defensive effort on James. But he scored 25 points in Tuesday’s closeout game and knocked down key shots at other points in the series.

“Guarding LeBron James has to be the hardest job in basketball,” Kerr said. “So after the first three games we decided to start Andre because he was doing by far the best job on LeBron. But he was also contributing in so many other ways. Offensively, their plan was to take Steph away, take Klay away, and force Draymond and Andre to beat them, and Andre did. He hit three more threes tonight. 25 points.”

Ironically, for a team that just beat LeBron James in the Finals, the success of the Warriors is most reminiscent of James’ most successful teams in Miami. Erik Spoelstra had no qualms about starting, say, Shane Battier in one series and yanking him from the rotation entirely in the next one when matchups dictated it. Nobody can say that the Warriors would be where they are, as champions, without Andrew Bogut, but it’s equally inarguable that Golden State gained a significant matchup advantage when Bogut was all but removed from the rotation.

The Warriors similarly had the level of success that they did this season, winning 67 games, with minimal contributions from their highest-paid player, former All-Star David Lee. But Lee contributed in Games 3 and 4 when called upon. From the top of the roster down, this team had full buy-in. It’s a testament not only to Kerr’s willingness to make unorthodox coaching decisions but to the willingness of Lee, Bogut and Iguodala to make the sacrificed they did.

Which is why it’s perfectly fitting that the player who got the solo turn on the podium wasn’t the league MVP, top All-Star vote-getter and arguably the greatest shooter in NBA history. It was one of those role players whose selflessness made the Warriors’ entire system work.

“You could make an argument that it could have gone to Steph, it could have gone to LeBron,” Kerr said of the Finals MVP award. “But for us, it’s really fitting that the award went to Andre because he sacrificed his starting role from the first game of the season. He had never come off the bench once in his entire career, and he sacrificed that job to make Harrison better, to make our bench better, and that set the tone for our whole season. An All-Star, an Olympian, saying, ‘OK, I’ll come off the bench.’ It set the tone for everything we were able to accomplish, so it feels like full-circle to me that Andre received the award. Couldn’t happen to a better person.”

It ended up being a coronation for the modern NBA offense. Hopefully dispelling once and for all the idea that a jump-shooting team can’t win an NBA title.

Golden State was the best team in the NBA all season long. They were elite on offense, knocking down ridiculous threes, but they were elite on defense as well. They were te best team through the playoffs and into the NBA Finals.

Tuesday night Cleveland tried again to counter the small ball, up-tempo, ball movement offense of Golden State by going big. And the Cavs put up some points, center Timofey Mozgov finished with 17 points and the Cavaliers had 46 points in the paint.

But Cleveland could not get stops with that lineup. Then again, every team had trouble getting stops against the Warriors all season long. Stephen Curry had 25 points, Andre Iguodala chipped in 25 himself on the way to winning the Finals MVP.

Golden State beat the Cavaliers 105-97 to take the NBA Finals four games to two. This was the Warriors first title since 1975.

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Golden State capped off one of the statistically best seasons in NBA history with an NBA title. One they had to earn on the road against the best player in the world — LeBron James did all he could finishing with 32 points (on 33 shots), 18 rebounds and nine assists.

“There’s been all this talk this year about the three point shot, can you win shooting it,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “There’s a lot of different styles that can work, you have to base it on your own personnel. But what was overlooked all year long is what really wins is the combination of great offense and great defense. We had the No. 1 defense in the league, we had the highest scoring team in the league. We were number one in assists, we were number one in field goal percentage defense. When you get that combination you’re going to be pretty good.”

Cleveland fans, desperate for a title that the city has not seen since 1964, can try to console themselves with how well this team played despite the loss of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving to injuries in the playoffs. This team will be back to the Finals in the coming years.

“This is a process,” Warriors coach David Blatt said. “You don’t wake up one morning and fall out of bed and expect to win the NBA Championship.You hope that you can, but it doesn’t always work that way, and our guys did more than anyone could expect to put themselves and put our organization in this situation.”

But as it had been all season, the best was in the West.

“We were fortunate in a lot of ways this year, but maybe number one was health,” Kerr said. “To win a title there is obviously a lot of work, but a lot of luck as well. And we had a lot of luck on our side this year and our guys took advantage of that.”

Golden State expected a storm from a desperate Cleveland team to open the game. That happened. The Warriors started 1-of-4 for shooting, while the Cavaliers got points in the paint, jumping out to a 7-2 lead. That didn’t last long; the Warriors came back on a 9-1 run to take the lead on a Curry corner three. Golden State was back to playing its game — they assisted on 11 of first 12 buckets, shot 54.5 percent in the first quarter and led 28-15 after one.

But Golden State struggled to keep up the scoring pace in the second quarter, going 1-of-10 shooting. They attacked the rim but Mozgov had three blocks and was owning the paint. Cleveland got the lead down to two as they held Golden State to 27 percent shooting in the second quarter while LeBron had 11 of his 15 first-half points in the second.

It was 45-43 Warriors at the half, but it felt like LeBron was pacing himself, holding something back so they would not fade in the fourth quarter again. That or he was too gassed to take over. It may ultimately have been more of the latter, despite his once again impressive numbers.

Early in the third, the Warriors kept driving at Mozgov, and it still didn’t work, allowing the Cavaliers take a brief lead. Then the Warriors decided to kick out and shoot the three again, and the the Warriors went on a 16-4 run stretching the lead back out to 10. It felt like LeBron was going to take charge for a few moments, but he continued to play more facilitator.

The Warriors continued to get production from their bench, for example 10 points in 11 minutes from Festus Ezeli. That bench allowed them to rest their key starters for stretches and not fall apart, so their players were ready to make a push in the fourth. The Cavaliers could not do that with LeBron.

After three quarters, the Warriors led bench scoring 19-9 and the game 73-61.

Everyone kept waiting for the Cavaliers run in the fourth quarter, and it didn’t come until the final couple minutes, after the game seemed out of hand. They closed the gap all the way down to four in the last minute, but the Cavs had to foul and the Warriors hit just enough free throws to survive.